No Left Turns

Harmful Aid to Africa

Kenyan economist, James Shikwati, made an unusual argument about the West’s well-intentioned efforts to end poverty in Africa (in this interview in Der Spiegel): “For God’s sake, please just stop!”

What’s wrong with our aid? A lot: “Huge bureaucracies are financed, corruption and complacency are promoted, Africans are taught to be beggars and not to be independent. In addition, development aid weakens the local markets everywhere and dampens the spirit of entrepreneurship that we so desperately need. ... If the West were to cancel these payments, normal Africans wouldn’t even notice. Only the functionaries would be hard hit. Which is why they maintain that the world would stop turning without this development aid... Unfortunately, the Europeans’ devastating urge to do good can no longer be countered with reason.”

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